C'est Déjà Vu, Ma Cherie
by ladyrostova
Summary: Isobel comes to check up on John's fulfillment of his promise to remove the Salvatore brothers from Elena's life. JennaxIsobel slash.


It was times like these that Jenna found herself questioning the merits of middle-class American society. She was sitting on the couch, remote control held in a limp grasp between her recently-laquered fingernails, a frown furrowing her pale brow, a small, round, 'o' molding her lips, Dr. Phil preaching some nonsense on the screen in front of her. She sighed, pressed the mute button, and glanced down at the pile of books sitting beside her, holding them with a pensive stare. She was not in the mood for writing, not tonight. And especially not about her thesis. She rolled her eyes and pulled her form out of the sunken-in couch, deciding perhaps to migrate to the kitchen table, where sat her laptop, propped open and ready for her attention.

If she could give it.

Thankfully, she had the house to herself tonight––Elena was with Stefan and Alaric, sensitive to Jenna's need to be alone for a while to work on her thesis, had taken Jeremy out to see some recently released action film. She didn't know, or care. All that she knew was that she was finally, perfectly, completely alone, and how was she relishing her time? By watching reruns of a fake psychologist on television. Great one, Jenna. A real winner, that's what you are.

_Sigh_.

She could put on a pot of coffee, grab a power-bar, motivate herself with caffeine and extra calories. Ponytail swishing behind her as she went to do just that, Jenna wrapped her arms around herself in defense against a sudden draft. Had she perhaps left a window open? Odd. She glanced over into the foyer. No windows open. Hmm, must be a draft from underneath the door or something. She moved over the kitchen sink, filled the coffee pot with some water, and looked at her reflection in the window directly over the faucet, pale against the black, motionless night sky.

Motionless.

There couldn't be a draft if it was motionless outside. She paused for a moment, her heart's tempo increasing. Perhaps she'd accidentally turned on the air conditioning instead of the heat; in this old house those sorts of things happened. It was a possibility, right? She felt her skin prickle with goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold. Swallowing, she set down the coffee pot and stepped hesitantly across the foyer and to the front door, where she peered out the peephole and saw... nothing. Of course.

This caffeine must be getting to her head, she thought with a staggering sigh of relief. There wasn't a draft and the air conditioning wasn't on and there was no one there, she was being so silly, honestly––

Except the doorbell just rang.

Jenna's heart was pounding thickly, and she struggled to turn around and face the door again. She wasn't going to look through the peephole. She didn't think she could handle that. Maybe there was no one there, maybe it was just the wind.

...yeah, the nonexistent wind.

Oh God. Okay, well, she had to just see who it was. She didn't know who would be there, who could possibly want something from her this late––it didn't make sense, it was pushing ten o'clock in the evening, and she didn't know why anyone would really want to––

'Okay, sheesh, hold your horses,' she whispered hoarsely to herself as the doorbell rang a second time. Her palms, suddenly clammy, wrapped around the bronze doorknob and pulled it back, revealing a young woman, perhaps just a few years older than Jenna, standing just on the edge of the doorway. Immediately, Jenna recognized her, and her stomach fell through the floor.

'Isobel.' Her jaw locked, her defenses all in place, her fists balled at her side. 'What do you want?'

That same, stupid, coy smile donned those glossy red lips of hers (like velvet, just as Jenna promised herself she'd never remember), and she parted them in a way that was meant to be seductive but only really just pissed Jenna off and said, 'Can't I visit an old friend, Jenna?'

'Not unannounced,' Jenna retorted, taking a careful step back and eyeing Isobel warily. God, she wished Alaric had stayed, she thought with a painful pang in her chest.

'Well,' Isobel said, running her tongue over her lips, 'I know you haven't had much time to adjust to the life of a hostess, Jen, but it's rude to leave your guests standing on your doorstep.'

With a huff, Jenna slammed the door in Isobel's face and locked it, pressing her back firmly to its exterior, her breath overwhelming her in rapid, uninterrupted gasps.

'Please, let me come in, Jenna,' came the other woman's voice, muffled, from behind the door, but not without its usual dark timbre. 'I want to talk to you about Elena.'

'You gave up your right to know anything about Elena seventeen years ago, Isobel,' Jenna spat from the other side of the door, a protective bubble of rage blossoming in her chest. 'Just like you gave up any right to come here and stick your nose where it doesn't belong.'

'I brought you some pills,' she stated, seriously. Bribery? Well, she couldn't say she was above it, she thought with a small smirk. 'The kind I used to give you when I visited; do you remember?'

She was disgusted with herself for feeling an almost uncontrollable longing surge through her being as she heard those words. 'Pills?' she repeated, faintly. She'd said it more to herself than to anyone else, but, of course, Isobel had heard. No, she was above this, she tried to tell herself––she had conquered this years ago, those days were gone. Her stomach clenched. She'd promised Elena she'd stop. She promised _herself_ she'd stop. But there was no one here, now, to tell; no one here to see anything, no one to stop the memories from bubbling up inside her brain and frothing over into her numbed, steady breathing. No one here except she and Isobel.

And the pills.

She could have hit herself for opening the door and inviting Isobel in.

'Ah, much better. It is rather chilly out there, isn't it?' Isobel said as Jenna closed the door behind her. 'So, it's just you and I tonight, I take it?'

Jenna nodded mutely and locked the door.

'Excellent.' She took off her coat and slung it over the back of the couch, revealing the skin-tight black dress she had picked out just for this occasion. Whoever said she had to play fair? She could sense Jenna's heart accelerate; feel her gulp; was aware of her eyelids peeling back to allow those glassy green orbs a deeper view. But most of all? Most of all, she could distinctly perceive the lush blood pumping through Jenna's veins. And _that_ was what she liked best.

'Can I get you anything to drink?' she queried, forcing the words out of her mouth as she moved stiffly into the kitchen.

'Maybe later,' Isobel responded, in a way that sent a shiver down Jenna's spine. 'For now, let's just... talk. Mkay?'

When Jenna had poured herself a generous cup of overly-black coffee, she joined Isobel at the kitchen table, avoiding her penetrating gaze. Isobel flicked her dark brown eyes over the flipped-up computer screen and let out a snicker. 'Finally working on your thesis, I see? Schizophrenia and religion. I like it; fresh, original. You always did have an interest in theological studies, I remember.'

'It's my minor,' she said, weakly. 'Major in psychology, just––'

'––like me? Although, I doubt you know I shifted my major to parapsychology, later. That was after we––'

'––stopped talking,' Jenna interjected, her voice straining. 'Yes, Alaric told me that.' She brought him up boldly, now, and met Isobel's intense gaze. 'He told me a lot of things about you, Isobel. A lot of things that I hadn't known. That you hadn't told me.'

She smiled, almost apologetically. 'I never promised you anything, Jenna, except a few pills on the weekends. You know that.' She ignored Jenna's flinch. 'I find it amusing that you seem to have found a bedfellow in my husband,' Isobel said, her smile widening, 'you and I always did have similar tastes.' She lingered a bit on that last word, deepening her gaze, now that she had caught Jenna's attention. 'So, tell me, Jenna,' she began, suddenly breaking the contact and pushing herself out of the wooden chair, steadily walking across the table to where Jenna sat, frigidly, 'who's better in bed, do you think?' She pulled back a strand of Jenna's hair, exposing her neck, where the vibrant blue veins throbbed beneath her beautiful, pale skin, and leaned forward, inhaling her scent. 'Me, or him?' she whispered into her ear.

'I don't know what you're talking about, Isobel.'

'Oh, yes you do, Jenna,' she drawled, the warmth of her breath sending goosebumps across Jenna's flesh, 'you know _exactly_ what I'm talking about.'

Jenna pushed her chair back roughly into Isobel's abdomen and stood up. 'Stop this, Isobel. Whatever you're doing, whatever you want. Just stop it, because I'm not going to give it to you.'

Something of a malicious grin spread over Isobel's features as she said, 'Ah, but you already have.'

Before Jenna even had time to ask her what she meant by that damned, typical-Isobel, cryptic-ass statement, her back was up against the wall, their lips pressed together in a firm kiss. Not so much romantic, as desperate, passionate, intense. They needed this, just like they had all those years ago, when Isobel served as Jenna's mentor in college. They'd needed it then––at least, Jenna had. Isobel knew how to manipulate her; knew what made her tick. That's why she'd brought her the sleeping pills, and that's why she was sticking her tongue down her throat now.

She knew Jenna, inside and out.

It was familiar, the actions from here on out. When they made love, it was always rushed, forced, hands flying and fingers grasping with little rhyme or reason, just––_passion_, thick and unrestrained, drawing them together. It was magnetic. And they meshed; Jenna, with her partying, her carelessness, her willingness to experiment and inability to recognize the potential for consequences, and Isobel, her wild and childish ways, her hunger for change, her need to be anything but ordinary. To each other, they held vast sex appeal, that was a given. And, with them, it had always been about sex. Animalistic.

Just the way Isobel liked it.

Memories flooded Jenna's head; sitting in her dorm room before her roommate got home, turning up the Steely Dan so loud that the people in the rooms next door would often file complaints, the smell of beer and marijuana drifting throughout the room, Isobel's mouth thick with smoke, her own going numb after all the pills she'd popped, the scratches, the biting... and then the silence afterward; sometimes thicker than the lust that had put them there.

'You missed me, didn't you?'

'Not for a second.'

Teeth met teeth as the two women smiled into their deepening kiss, and Jenna locked her hands over Isobel's head, digging her nails into those raven tresses with a sensation something a little close to sadism. But Isobel couldn't feel such minor inflictions from a human, so she continued on as if unaffected, nibbling on Jenna's lower lip.

Soon, she would have to feed.

That's of course why she brought the pills.

'Where _i__s_ my daughter?' Isobel queried, pulling back from the kiss to wrap Jenna's thighs around her torso and press her harder against the wall. This was, of course, the real reason she was here.

'Out, with her boyfriend,' Jenna rasped, breathily, not even aware of what she was saying anymore. 'Stefan Salvatore. They won't be back for a while, yet,' she finished with a smile.

A slow, dry laugh crackled out of Isobel's throat as she dropped Jenna roughly to the ground. 'That fucking liar,' she muttered to herself, still grinning with a sort of wickedness that frightened Jenna. 'I knew I couldn't trust him.'

'Isobel––what's wrong, what are you talking ab––?'

Within seconds, Isobel was on top of her on the floor, savagely ripping through her neck, sucking on the sweet, metallic blood that now flowed freely. She'd never fed from Jenna before, but it had always been a long-cherished fantasy, ever since their college days. It was even sweeter than she could have imagined it––Jenna's weak cries of shock and protest, her limply flailing limbs, her eyes rolling back into her head, her mouth hanging open with silent screams of agony.

To Isobel, she never looked more beautiful as she did now.

In a few minutes, when she was through, Isobel pulled back and wiped her lips on the back of her hand, staring at the pale and crippled form beneath her. Jenna's luminous eyes looked up at her with abhorrence and repulsion––normally, this would have elicited some level of guilt from Isobel. But Isobel was hardly normal anymore, and she didn't quite like feeling guilt.

Jenna was feeling faint, but she wasn't about to let herself drift into unconsciousness without getting some answers. 'Is––Isobel,' she stuttered, feeling a strange coldness on her neck, where she'd been bitten, and from which blood still oozed, 'what's going on?'

'Don't try to talk, darling,' Isobel cooed as she leaned in closer to Jenna's face, pressing their torsos together. She was straddling the strawberry-blond, now, pinning her arms to the ground with either hand. 'I think it's cute that you never believed in the practical applications of parapsychology. Guess you should have listened better to me.'

Jenna struggled lamely against her, trying in vain to break free from her superhuman grasp. Isobel lunged forward, kissed her. Human weakness had always turned her on.

Frustration, searing anguish; all consumed Jenna's body with such a desperate affliction that she felt she might die, like this, underneath her old fuck buddy from college. That old guilt seeped into her, overwhelmed her––that she had feelings of lust for Elena's _mother_, which she felt was incestuous regardless of the fact that she wasn't truly even related to her niece. She was all too closely reminded of those lazy afternoons when Isobel visited in her door room on the weekends; of their passion play. She didn't want to remember those days, they were behind her. She'd known, even then, that Isobel was only using her. Isobel had only ever used Jenna; first, to learn about her daughter, to somehow still be involved in her life, and now, for this.

For blood.

But not just that. Isobel knew Jenna didn't know about the existence of vampires, and she intended to keep it that way. She knew Jenna wouldn't know to censor herself around Isobel; especially not when she could be compelled. And Isobel wanted to keep up on John's progress, though it looked like he hadn't made any. Typical.

When you want something done right, compel someone to do it for you.

'Jenna,' Isobel said, her eyes darkening and focusing on the girl's beneath her. 'you are not to allow Stefan, or Damon Salvatore, to come into this house, for any reason. Do you understand?'

'Yes,' Jenna replied, blankly, 'I understand.'

'And you're not going to remember this, or remember me. You did this to yourself, Jenna. You popped a few pills, and you got wild, like you used to. This is your fault.'

'All my fault.'

And when the compulsion ended, and Jenna opened her eyes, and felt the pain, and found herself lying with her shirt up and her neck gashed open on the kitchen floor, she had no idea what got her there.

She was shaking uncontrollably and her breath was coming in shallow gasps as she fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone. She flipped it open and began dialing Alaric's number when she saw an opened bottle of sleeping pills on the floor beside her. Her fingers stopped working. She dropped the phone.

'Shit,' was all she managed to say, before she lost consciousness.

From the window outside, Isobel smiled, and then melded into the shadow.


End file.
